Ottoman Rule

At about the time Spain was establishing its presidios in the
Maghrib, the Muslim privateer brothers Aruj and Khair ad Din--the latter
known to Europeans as Barbarossa, or Red Beard--were operating
successfully off Tunisia under the Hafsids. In 1516 Aruj moved his base
of operations to Algiers, but was killed in 1518 during his invasion of
Tlemcen. Khair ad Din succeeded him as military commander of Algiers.
The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey (provincial
governor) and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries, well-armed Ottoman
soldiers. With the aid of this force, Khair ad Din subdued the coastal
region between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained
in Spanish hands until 1791). Under Khair ad Din's regency, Algiers
became the center of Ottoman authority in the Maghrib, from which Tunis,
Tripoli, and Tlemcen would be overcome and Morocco's independence would
be threatened.

So successful was Khair ad Din at Algiers that he was recalled to
Constantinople in 1533 by the sultan, Süleyman I (r. 1520-66), known in
Europe as Süleyman the Magnificent, and appointed admiral of the
Ottoman fleet. The next year he mounted a successful seaborne assault on
Tunis.

The next beylerbey was Khair ad Din's son Hassan, who
assumed the position in 1544. Until 1587 the area was governed by
officers who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with the
institution of a regular Ottoman administration, governors with the
title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. Turkish was the
official language, and Arabs and Berbers were excluded from government
posts.

The pasha was assisted by janissaries, known in Algeria as the ojaq
and led by an agha. Recruited from Anatolian peasants, they
were committed to a lifetime of service. Although isolated from the rest
of society and subject to their own laws and courts, they depended on
the ruler and the taifa for income. In the seventeenth century,
the force numbered about 15,000, but it was to shrink to only 3,700 by
1830. Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because
they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the
pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption
and incompetence and seized power in 1659.

The taifa had the last word, however, when in 1671 it
rebelled, killed the agha, and placed one of its own in power.
The new leader received the title of dey, which originated in
Tunisia. After 1689 the right to select the dey passed to the divan, a
council of some sixty notables. The divan at first was dominated by the ojaq,
but by the eighteenth century it became the dey's instrument. In 1710
the dey persuaded the sultan to recognize him and his successors as
regent, replacing the pasha in that role. Although Algiers remained a
part of the Ottoman Empire, the Sublime Porte, or Ottoman government,
ceased to have effective influence there.

The dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat, but his authority
was restricted by the divan and the taifa, as well as by local
political conditions. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the
159 years (1671-1830) that the system survived, fourteen of the
twenty-nine deys were removed from office by assassination. Despite
usurpation, military coups, and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day
operation of government was remarkably orderly. In accordance with the
millet system applied throughout the Ottoman Empire, each ethnic
group--Turks, Arabs, Kabyles, Berbers, Jews, Europeans--was represented
by a guild that exercised legal jurisdiction over its constituents.

The dey had direct administrative control only in the regent's
enclave, the Dar as Sultan (Domain of the Sultan), which included the
city of Algiers and its environs and the fertile Mitidja Plain. The rest
of the territory under the regency was divided into three provinces (beyliks):
Constantine in the east; Titteri in the central region, with its capital
at Médéa; and a western province that after 1791 had its seat at Oran,
abandoned that year by Spain when the city was destroyed in an
earthquake. Each province was governed by a bey appointed by the dey,
usually from the same circle of families.

A contingent of the ojaq was assigned to each bey, who also
had at his disposal the provincial auxiliaries provided by the
privileged makhzen tribes, traditionally exempted from paying
taxes on condition that they collect them from other tribes. Tax
revenues were conveyed from the provinces to Algiers twice yearly, but
the beys were otherwise left to their own devices. Although the regency
patronized the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance
of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest.
Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was
seldom applied in the Kabylie.